Re: Long View

["Carl L. Distefano" CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to note from Wendell Cochran  Fri, 17 Jan 97 01:45:21 +0000

-> What's the rush, Carl? The National Edition of the Times says
-> we've got 10 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion
-> trillion trillion trillion years, & repeats the number as
-> 10^100.
->
-> But maybe you're right. What we read out here ought to be
-> called the Trial Edition, & I gather that John rewrote the
-> story for the final.

Actually, Wendell, he did revise -- the text, not the timetable.
(My edit intentionally omitted the final big number. I was
counseling perspective, not complacency!) In the print edition, the
headline read "At Other End of the 'Big Bang,' a Possible Big
Sputter", or something like that -- to avoid a tired allusion to
"The Wasteland", I suppose. On the Web (whence I grabbed the
quote), he relented and changed it to "Whimper" and, in the 2d
paragraph, added an explicit reference to Eliot.

Lest there be any confusion, the final Dark era,
according to the Times (all editions), will indeed
begin 10^100 (a googol) years from now.
To summarize:

Year    Event
----    -----
+0     Get dressed, have breakfast, load XyWrite, etc.
+5x10^9  Sun burns out (we're toast), followed by all other stars
+10^14   "Degenerate era" begins (dwarfs and black holes)
+10^36   "Black hole era" begins (even they fizzle out)
+10^100  "Dark era" begins (particle soup, lotsa laughs)

Mark your calendars.


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Carl Distefano * * * CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx
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